Teen Who Cut Off Corpse's Head To Make Bong Sentenced

Teen Who Cut Off Corpse's Head To Make Bong Sentenced
Friends Say Buckalew Told Them He Did It Out Of Boredom
POSTED: 12:52 pm EDT June 29, 2006






ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. -- A Vermont teenager has been sentenced to prison for breaking into a tomb and cutting the head off a corpse.

Nickolas Buckalew, 18, of Morrisville, Vt., pleaded guilty to two charges.

One was a felony count of intentionally removing or injuring a tombstone. The other was a felony charge of intentionally disinterring and carrying away the remains of a human body.

Buckalew was sentenced to between one and seven years in prison and was given credit for serving 14 months while awaiting trial.

On April 8, 2005, Buckalew broke into a tomb, opened the lid of a casket and cut off the head of a corpse. He stole eyeglasses and a bow tie from the dead man. He then wrapped the head in plastic bags and took it home, The Caledonian-Record reported.

The teen reportedly told friends that he planned to leave the head outside to dry and would then bleach it, a police affidavit said. The witnesses said his plan was to turn the skull into a bong -- a pipe generally used to smoke marijuana. Buckalew went to an apartment where some of his friends were and told them that he had chopped off the head because he was bored, according to The Caledonian-Record.

The witnesses said they then went to the tomb to see the casket and saw that the lid was removed and the body in the casket was headless.

Morristown said that while executing a search warrant at Buckalew’s home, they found a human head wrapped in bags, a necktie, a hacksaw, crowbar, garden trowel and two small parts of the damaged casket, according to the newspaper.

A psychiatrist has diagnosed Buckalew with mental health issues.

Dr. Philip Kinsler, a clinical psychologist and adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H., testified that Buckalew “has always felt extraordinarily out of place" and that Buckalew said he tried to hang himself when he was a child.

After the incident, the victim's widow, the only family member in the area, was told of the vandalism.


"The widow was in shock," the chief of police said said. "She did not want any information. She did not want to know any details."

Buckalew addressed the court after his sentencing, saying, "It was a horrendous thing that I did -- what I did was appalling. I didn't think of the victim."

He went on to say he wants to get help for his mental problems.

He's been sent to a residential treatment program for juveniles.

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Iraq Amnesty Plan May Cover Attacks On U.S. Military

Iraq Amnesty Plan May Cover Attacks On U.S. Military
Leader Also Backs Talks With Resistance
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 15, 2006; A01





BAGHDAD, June 14 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be released within days. The plan is likely to include pardons for those who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.

Maliki's declaration of openness to talks with some members of Sunni armed factions, and the prospect of pardons, are concessions that previous, interim governments had avoided. The statements marked the first time a leader from Iraq's governing Shiite religious parties has publicly embraced national reconciliation, welcomed dialogue with armed groups and proposed a limited amnesty.

Reconciliation could include an amnesty for those "who weren't involved in the shedding of Iraqi blood," Maliki told reporters at a Baghdad news conference. "Also, it includes talks with the armed men who opposed the political process and now want to turn back to political activity."

Maliki stressed that he had not yet met with the Sunni resistance and added, "We will talk to those whose hands are not stained with blood, and we hope they would rethink their strategy." He vowed that they "will not be able to interrupt the political process, either by wanting to bring back the old regime, or imposing an ugly, ethnic new regime upon Iraq."

As Maliki spoke, Iraqi soldiers and police led the first day of a security crackdown in Baghdad. A force of more than 30,000 uniformed Iraqi security personnel, backed by more than 30,000 U.S.-led foreign troops, enforced the first day of a dusk-to-dawn curfew and stepped up checkpoints throughout the capital. Iraq's Interior Ministry said Tuesday that no additional troops were brought in for the operation.

Thanks to Wednesday's expanded checkpoints -- one of the first clear efforts of Maliki's new government -- there were traffic-snarling jams across Baghdad. "We have noticed less and less people shopping, but I would rather have security than more customers," said Wisam Saad, 29, who stood in a shop empty of customers, surrounded by cigar boxes, teapots and trinkets.

Iraq's previous, transitional government, led by Ibrahim al-Jafari, a Shiite, launched a similar crackdown last year but it failed to deter the violence. After elections in December selected Iraq's first full-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Maliki won appointment as prime minister. His month-old administration has seen rapid movement on some long-standing demands from Sunni opponents of the Shiite governments, such as the U.S.-Iraqi agreement to free thousands of detainees in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq this month. Hundreds are due to be released from the Abu Ghraib prison on Thursday.

Maliki's security crackdown and talk of amnesty and reconciliation came a day after President Bush's unannounced visit to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Bush came with what he said were twin messages for Maliki: The United States would not abandon Iraq, but Iraq needed to do more to tackle its problems.

The violence continued Wednesday. A bomb placed in a parked car exploded in northern Baghdad, missing the police patrol that was its apparent target but killing four civilians. A photographer for the Reuters news service, caught in the traffic, reported witnessing bystanders sticking bars into vehicles in an effort to pull out victims who were burning alive.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has long talked of negotiations and a possible limited amnesty to help end Iraq's violence. However, Maliki's statements Wednesday marked the greatest public show of willingness to compromise from governments led by the Shiite religious parties.

The Arab League on Wednesday postponed a reconciliation conference for Iraq that had been set for August. Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, a top adviser to Maliki, said the conference was delayed in part so Iraq could decide who might be eligible for any amnesty. It was not clear how the government would verify which insurgents have been responsible for which types of attacks.

"The government has in mind somehow to do reconciliation, and one way to do it is to offer an amnesty, but not a sort of unconditional amnesty," Kadhimi said in a telephone interview. "We can see if somehow those who are so-called resistance can be accepted if they have not been involved in any kind of criminal behavior, such as killing innocent people or damaging infrastructure, and even infrastructure if it is minor will be pardoned."

The reconciliation effort pioneered by South Africa after the collapse of apartheid might be a model, Kadhimi said. "One way was to admit what you have done and you will be forgiven, and maybe parts of this can be considered. Because once we see people coming forward to admit what they have done, and it's within the areas the government has the right to pardon, it could happen."

Asked about clemency for those who attacked U.S. troops, he said: "That's an area where we can see a green line. There's some sort of preliminary understanding between us and the MNF-I," the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-Iraq, "that there is a patriotic feeling among the Iraqi youth and the belief that those attacks are legitimate acts of resistance and defending their homeland. These people will be pardoned definitely, I believe."

Asked about pardons for those who had attacked Iraqi forces, he said: "This needs to be carefully studied or designed so maybe the family of those individuals killed have a right to make a claim at the court, because that is a public right. Or maybe the government can compensate them."

U.S. diplomatic officials have said previously that they were encouraging dialogue among Iraq's many rival factions, but none has confirmed U.S. backing for an amnesty offer.

Maliki also addressed the problem of militias allied with his Shiite religious bloc. "Our success in the national reconciliation plan and our success in providing services will give . . . a message that there is no need anymore for militias, because security is under the government's control." He had earlier proposed that militias be absorbed into Iraq's security forces.

Maliki's statements come as there is growing openness to dialogue on all sides of Iraq's ethnic and religious divides. Talabani told reporters at a news conference in the Kurdish north last weekend that he believed 2006 might be the year of peace settlements for Iraq.

Similarly, the top Sunni Arab in Iraq's new government said this week that he believed a peace deal was "very close." Salam al-Zobaie, the deputy prime minister, said in an interview in his Baghdad office this week that the difference this time was that the new Shiite-led government was indicating openness to compromise.

Asked about proposals of amnesty for Sunni insurgents, Zobaie said the previous Shiite governments "closed the door" on the Sunnis "and forced them to take up the gun to defend themselves. We should be talking about an apology, not amnesty."

Bahaa al-Araji, a lawmaker and supporter of Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, said Wednesday that members of the governing Shiite alliance were formally asked by their bloc this week to evaluate who might be acceptable partners for dialogue on the Sunni side.

Speaking before Maliki's news conference, Araji rejected some of what he said were too-easy peace terms being floated by Talabani. He said Talabani was speaking from the perspective of a northern Kurd spared the scale of violence that has bloodied the rest of Iraq.

Rather than a reconciliation conference, Araji said, the best step for peace in Iraq would be for leaders of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish blocs in parliament to come to terms among themselves.

"That will take care of 90 percent of the people" in Iraq's conflict. The remaining 10 percent "will then be isolated and exposed, so all their evil steps are obvious to us and to them," Araji said. Military forces could deal with the remaining hard-liners after any reconciliation, he said.

Asked if he was optimistic about prospects for an easing of the killings, Araji cited the Feb. 22 bombing of the golden-domed Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Destruction of the shrine spurred sectarian violence to new and lasting heights.

"Not as optimistic as I was six months ago," the Shiite lawmaker said. "More than I was three months ago."

Staff writer Joshua Partlow and special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Saad al-Izzi contributed to this report.


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Tony Snow on U.S. Death #2500 in Iraq: "It's a Number"

Tony Snow on U.S. Death #2500 in Iraq: "It's a Number"
By E&P Staff
Published: June 15, 2006 4:20 PM ET






NEW YORK As Congress carried out a rare debate on Iraq today, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was meeting reporters a few miles away.

Not surprisingly, the first question had to do with a landmark today -- the announcement that the American death toll in Iraq had reached 2500. A later question asked about specific progress in the war. Here is how those exchanges went down.

*
Q Tony, American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?

MR. SNOW: It's a number, and every time there's one of these 500 benchmarks people want something. The President would like the war to be over now. Everybody would like the war to be over now. And the one thing that we saw in Iraq this week is further testimony to the quality of the men and the women who are doing that, and the dedication and determination to try to ensure that the people of Iraq really do live in a free, effective democracy of their own creation and design.

Any President who goes through a time of war feels very deeply the responsibility for sending men and women into harm's way, and feels very deeply the pain that the families feel. And this President is no different. You've seen it many times. You saw it, you saw it when he was in that ballroom, Terry, and you had this crowd of servicemen and women who were cheering loudly for the President, and he got choked up. So it's always a sad benchmark, and one of the things the President has said is that these people will not die in vain.

And part of what happened this very week when the President went to Baghdad, and he sat down with the Prime Minister and he sat down with the cabinet, and he sat down with the President and Vice President, he sat down with the national security team, and he sat down with the leaders of all the major political parties, what he saw now is that after all of this, what you have in Iraq is a freestanding government that has been elected by the Iraqi people. It has a Prime Minister who is going to be there for four years, who is determined to act as a Prime Minister, who is determined to lead, who is setting priorities, and he's somebody we can work with. You have a Minister of Defense who has significant experience and is already working with his colleagues, not only here at the Pentagon, but also General Casey and others in the field. The President understands that those deaths cannot be in vain, and you've got a government now that can help ensure that that is not the case.

Q Was he told about the benchmark, the President?

MR. SNOW: I don't know. I'm sure he will hear about it.

*
Q Just one more on this, because you keep coming back to what seems to be kind of a facile explanation about car bombs obscuring real successes in Iraq. If that were the case, you wouldn't have had two governments fail, by the President's own admission. Isn't it a bit of a simplification to say that terrorists' car bombs are obscuring the real picture?

MR. SNOW: No, I don't. And I don't think it's facile, either --

Q You don't think that's a misrepresentation? After three years, Baghdad can't be secured yet?

MR. SNOW: No. The President has said all along -- what you're expecting is facile, which is a snap victory, things easy. It's not easy. This is a country where there have been factional disputes that go back a very long time. And people on the ground know that it's not easy. No, they're not facile at all in their approach to how they fight the war. I would also pose that to the people who are in theater. It's not a facile explanation. It's a true explanation: a car bomb is more vivid than getting an extra hundred kilowatts out of an electrical generation facility.

Q Well, since they haven't done that either --

MR. SNOW: There has been progress in those areas.



E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)



© 2006 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved.

A Mixed Message For U.S. Troops

A Mixed Message For U.S. Troops
Nation: 19 Senators Allow Iraq To Pardon Killing Americans
June 23, 2006







(The Nation) This article was written by By John Nichols .
Here's an interesting political position: Keep U.S. troops in Iraq and signal to the Iraqi government that its O.K. to pardon insurgents who kill Americans.

Even in the frequently surreal debate over this absurd war, that sounds like too warped a position for anyone in Congress to take.

Yet, that's the stance 19 senators took Tuesday.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson proposed a simple amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. It sought: "To express the sense of Congress that the Government of Iraq should not grant amnesty to persons known to have attacked, killed, or wounded members of the Armed Forces of the United States."

Seventy-nine senators -- all the Democrats who participated in the vote, as well as most of the Republicans -- backed the Nelson amendment.

But 19 senators opposed it. All are Republican supporters of the war, who have voted to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Yet they voted against a measure putting the Congress on record in opposition to granting amnesty to Iraqis who kill U.S. soldiers.

It would be unfair to suggest that the 19 "no" voters want Americans to die in Iraq, or that they want those deaths to go unpunished. It's just that they are unwilling to provoke an unstable Iraqi government by having the U.S. Congress send such a blunt message.

In other words, the 19 are so committed to making a success of the Iraq imbroglio that they don't want to say or do anything to upset the puppets, er, politicians in Baghdad.

The 19 senators who have given new meaning to the term "pro-war" are:

Wayne Allard of Colorado

Kit Bond of Missouri

Jim Bunning of Kentucky

Conrad Burns of Montana

Tom Coburn of Oklahoma

Thad Cochran of Mississippi

John Cornyn of Texas

Jim DeMint of South Carolina

Mike Enzi of Wyoming

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

Chuck Hagel of Nebraska

Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma

Jon Kyl of Arizona

Trent Lott of Mississippi

John McCain of Arizona

Jeff Sessions of Alabama

Ted Stevens of Alaska

Craig Thomas of Wyoming

John Warner of Virginia

Notably, Kyl and Burns face serious reelection challenges this year. It will be interesting to watch them try to explain this vote on the campaign trail.



By John Nichols
Reprinted with permission from The Nation.




If you like this article, check out www.thenation.com for more investigative reports, timely editorials and incisive columns

Bush ignores laws he inks, vexing Congress

Bush ignores laws he inks, vexing Congress
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
58 minutes ago





WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) thought he had a deal when President Bush, faced with a veto-proof margin in Congress, agreed to sign a bill banning the torture of detainees. Not quite. While Bush signed the new law, he also quietly approved another document: a signing statement reserving his right to ignore the law. McCain was furious, and so were other lawmakers.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is opening hearings this week into what has become the White House's favorite tool for overriding Congress in the name of wartime national security.

"It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution," the committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick."

Apparently, enough to challenge more than 750 statutes passed by Congress, far more than any other president, Specter's committee says. The White House does not dispute that number, but points out that Bush is far from the nation's first chief executive to issue them.

"Signing statements have long been issued by presidents, dating back to Andrew Jackson all the way through President Clinton," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday.

Specter's first hearing Tuesday is about more than the statements. He's been keeping a laundry list of White House practices he bluntly says could amount to abuses of executive power — from warrantless domestic wiretapping program to sending up officials who refuse on national security grounds to answer questions at hearings.

But the hearing also is about countering any influence Bush's signing statements may have on court decisions regarding the new laws. Courts can be expected to look to the legislature for intent, not the executive, said Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas., a former state judge.

"There's less here than meets the eye," Cornyn said. "The president is entitled to express his opinion. It's the courts that determine what the law is."

But Specter and his allies maintain that Bush, in practical terms, is doing an end-run around the veto process in the name of national security. In the sixth year of his presidency, Bush has yet to issue a single veto.

Rather than give Congress the opportunity to override a veto with a two-thirds majority in each house, he has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret the law on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the USA Patriot Act.

"It means that the administration does not feel bound to enforce many new laws which Congress has passed," said David Golove, a law professor at New York University who specializes in executive power issues. "This raises profound rule of law concerns. Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?"

Signing statements don't carry the force of law, and other presidents have issued them for administrative reasons — such as instructing an agency how to put a certain law into effect. When a president issues such a document, it's usually inserted quietly into the federal record.

Bush's signing statement in March on Congress's renewal of the Patriot Act particularly riled Specter and others who labored for months to craft a compromise between Senate and House versions, and what the White House wanted. Reluctantly, the administration gave in on its objections to new congressional oversight of the way the FBI searches for terrorists.

Bush signed the bill with much flag-waving fanfare. Then he issued a signing statement asserting his right to bypass the oversight provisions in certain circumstances.

Specter isn't sure how much Congress can do check the practice. "We may figure out a way to tie it to the confirmation process or budgetary matters," he said.



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Wars force Army equipment costs to triple

Wars force Army equipment costs to triple
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
59 minutes ago





WASHINGTON - The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.

From 2002 to 2006, the Army spent an average of $4 billion a year in annual equipment costs. But as the war takes a harder toll on the military, that number is projected to balloon to more than $12 billion for the federal budget year that starts next Oct. 1, the documents show.

The $17 billion also includes an additional $5 billion in equipment expenses that the Army requested in previous years but has not yet been provided.

The latest costs include the transfer of more than 1,200 2 1/2-ton trucks, nearly 1,100 Humvees and $8.8 million in other equipment from the U.S. Army to the Iraqi security forces.

Army and Marine Corps leaders are expected to testify before Congress Tuesday and outline the growing costs of the war — with estimates that it will cost between $12 billion and $13 billion a year for equipment repairs, upgrades and replacements from now on.

The Marine Corps has said in recent testimony before Congress that it would need nearly $12 billion to replace and repair all the equipment worn out or lost to combat in the past four years. So far, the Marines have received $1.6 billion toward those costs to replace and repair the equipment.

According to the Army, the $17 billion includes:

_$2.1 billion in equipment that must be replaced because of battle losses.

_About $6.5 billion for repairs.

_About $8.4 billion to rebuild or upgrade equipment.

One of the growing costs is the replacement of Humvees, which are wearing out more quickly because of the added armor they are carrying to protect soldiers from roadside bombs. The added weight is causing them to wear out faster, decreasing the life of the vehicles.

Congress has provided about $21 billion for equipment costs in emergency supplemental budget bills from 2002-06. All the war equipment expenses have been funded through those emergency bills, and not in the regular fiscal-year budgets.

Pentagon officials have estimated that such emergency bills would have to continue two years beyond the time the U.S. pulls out of Iraq in order to fully replace, repair and rebuild all of the needed equipment.

The push for additional equipment funding comes after the House last week passed a $427 billion defense spending bill for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, which includes $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A separate $66 billion emergency funding bill for the two wars was approved earlier in the month.

War-related costs since 2001 are approaching half a trillion dollars.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

House Delays Renewal of Voting Rights Act

House Delays Renewal of Voting Rights Act
House GOP leaders delay renewal of Voting Rights Act under objections from Southern Republicans

WASHINGTON, Jun. 21, 2006
By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press Writer






(AP) House Republican leaders on Wednesday postponed a vote on renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act after GOP lawmakers complained it unfairly singles out nine Southern states for federal oversight, a leadership aide said.

At a private meeting, several Republicans also balked at extending provisions in the law that require ballots to be printed in more than one language in neighborhoods where there are large numbers of immigrants, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not yet been made public.

The four-decade-old law enfranchised millions of black voters by ending poll taxes and literacy tests during the height of the civil rights struggle. A vote on renewing it for another 25 years had been scheduled for Wednesday, with both Republican and Democratic leaders behind it.

But in a private caucus meeting early in the day, enough Republicans raised objections to the legislation and the way it would be debated to persuade Republican leaders to postpone the vote.

"The speaker's had a standing rule that nothing would be voted on unless there's a majority of the majority," said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., who led the objections. "It was pretty clear at the meeting that the majority of the majority wasn't there."

It was unclear whether the disagreements could be resolved this year, said the leadership aide.

The temporary portions of the 1965 law expire in 2007, but House leaders of both parties hope to pass the bill this year and use it to advance their prospects in the fall midterm elections.

The legislation was approved by the Judiciary Committee on a 33-1 vote. But despite leadership support, controversy has shadowed the legislation 40 years after it first prohibited policies that blocked blacks from voting.

Several Republicans, led by Westmoreland, had worked to allow an amendment that would ease a requirement that nine states win permission from the Justice Department or a federal judge to change their voting rules.

The amendment's backers say the requirement unfairly singles out and holds accountable nine states that practiced racist voting policies decades ago, based on 1964 voter turnout data: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Westmoreland says the formula for deciding which states are subject to such "pre-clearance" should be updated every four years and be based on voter turnout in the most recent three elections.

"The pre-clearance portions of the Voting Rights Act should apply to all states, or no states," Westmoreland said. "Singling out certain states for special scrutiny no longer makes sense."

The amendment has powerful opponents. From Republican and Democratic leaders on down the House hierarchy, they argue that states with documented histories of discrimination may still practice it and have earned the extra scrutiny.

"This carefully crafted legislation should remain clean and unamended," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who worked on the original bill, which he called "the keystone of our national civil rights statutes."

By his own estimation, Westmoreland says the amendment stands little chance of being adopted.

The House also could bring up an amendment that would require the Justice Department to compile an annual list of jurisdictions eligible for a "bailout" from the pre-clearance requirements.

That amendment, too, has little chance of surviving the floor debate, leaving the underlying bill likely to pass the House. The Senate is scheduled to consider an identical bill later this year.

Other efforts to chip away at the act have faltered under pressure from powerful supporters.

One such measure, sponsored by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, would have stripped a provision that requires ballots to be printed in several languages and interpreters be provided in states and counties where large numbers of citizens speak limited English.

"It seems sort of redundant to have both of those provisions," said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga. He added that any foreign-speaking voter must prove some English proficiency to win citizenship.

However, Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., called that logic an effort to mix the divisive debate over immigration reform with the Voting Rights Act renewal. Three-fourths of those whose primary language is not English are American-born, he said.

___

The bill is H.R. 9



MMVI The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

China pleased after watching U.S. wargames

China pleased after watching U.S. wargames
Posted 6/22/2006 4:52 PM ET






SHANGHAI (AP) — Chinese military observers said Thursday that observing U.S. military exercises in the Pacific this week gave them a better understanding of U.S. weapons and tactics.
Delegation leader Rear Adm. Zhang Leiyu called the visit to the war games near Guam "a positive step in China-U.S. military ties," the official Xinhua News agency reported.

It was the first time a delegation from China had been invited to officially observe U.S. maneuvers in the Pacific, where China and the U.S. face potential conflicts over Taiwan.

"The visit helped China obtain a better understanding of U.S. weapons, training, skills and exercise arrangements," said Zhang, a navy vice chief of staff and commandant of China's Naval Submarine Academy.

Dubbed "Valiant Shield," the exercises brought three carriers together in the Pacific for the first time since the Vietnam War. Some 30 ships, 280 aircraft and 22,000 troops participated in the five-day war games, which ended Thursday.

Zhang's assessment of the exercises will likely be welcomed by exchange advocates, who argue Chinese exposure to advanced U.S. capabilities reduces the chances of misunderstandings or clashes.

However, the comments may arouse concern among exchange opponents. They say China gains valuable information about the U.S. military without giving away anything in return about their own 2.3 million-member armed forces — the world's largest.

Adm. William J. Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific who invited the Chinese delegation, said before the exercises began that he expected China to reciprocate. However, neither Zhang or the Xinhua report gave any indication that such an invitation was forthcoming.

The two countries' militaries have had their share of friction in the past, including fighting against each other in the Korean War. In 1996, the U.S. Navy sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the waters near Taiwan amid Chinese war games to intimidate the self-governing island, whose defense Washington is legally bound to assist.

China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid civil war, and Beijing has threatened to attack if the island continues to resist unification.

This week's maneuvers were part of U.S. efforts to reinvigorate exchanges between the two militaries, which have had little interaction since a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter over the South China Sea in 2001.

Later Thursday, Xinhua said China is "open" to military exchanges with the United States, and that it is willing to promote bilateral defense and security cooperation, citing remarks by Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan.

Tang made the remarks following a meeting with a delegation of the American Foreign Policy Council, a non-profit organization. The delegation was led by retired Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Xinhua said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted 6/22/2006 4:52 PM ET

Soldiers were left alone before insurgents struck

Soldiers were left alone before insurgents struck
Updated 6/22/2006 8:34 PM ET







TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) — The two U.S. soldiers who were captured in an insurgent attack last week and later found dead had been left to guard a bridge while other vehicles in their patrol inspected traffic elsewhere, military officials said.
The two soldiers — and a third who died in the initial attack — were left with one Humvee at a bridge on a Euphrates River canal south of Baghdad.

The soldiers and their vehicle were out of view of the rest of the unit when the attack occurred, said Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, a spokeswoman for coalition forces. It was not clear how far they were from the other Americans. She said the three had been keeping in contact with the others by radio.

An investigation will try to determine why the three-man team was left alone last Friday in the "Triangle of Death," a volatile region south of Baghdad where insurgent activity is high. Army protocols are specifically designed to prevent such attacks, Martin-Hing said.

"The investigation is going to look at whether proper procedures were followed," she said.

After an extensive search, the soldiers' bodies were recovered Tuesday in Youssifiyah, a few miles from where the initial attack took place. Youssifiyah is 12 miles south of Baghdad.

A U.S. military official told the Associated Press on Wednesday that one and possibly both of the soldiers whose bodies were found had been tortured and beheaded. The official requested anonymity because the report on the bodies' condition has not been released.

The bodies were sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday for positive identification through DNA testing.

The captured soldiers were Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. Spc. David Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the initial attack.

An Internet statement attributed to the Mujahedin Shura Council, an umbrella organization of five insurgent groups led by al-Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers. The statement, which could not be authenticated, said the men had been "slaughtered" by the successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike June 7.

In other Iraq news:

• The U.S. military said four Marines were killed Tuesday in Anbar province, three of them in a roadside bombing and a fourth in a separate operation. An Army soldier died Wednesday south of the capital, the military said. It gave no further details.

• Police stormed a farm north of Baghdad and freed 17 people who had been kidnapped a day earlier at their workplace, a factory. Industry Minister Fowzi Hariri told state-run Iraqiya TV on Thursday that 64 people in all had been abducted at the factory.

• At least 25 people have been executed gangland-style in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, police told AP. Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has a mixed Kurdish and Sunni Arab population.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted 6/22/2006 1:10 PM ET
Updated 6/22/2006 8:34 PM ET

Senate rejects Iraq troop withdrawal

Senate rejects Iraq troop withdrawal
By Ross Colvin
Thu Jun 22, 5:06 PM ET




Republican senators backed President George W. Bush's Iraq policies on Thursday, rejecting Democratic plans to start pulling out troops after a debate that forced Iraq to the heart of campaigning for November elections.

Five U.S. troops were killed in the previous two days, the military said -- four Marines in two attacks in western Iraq and a soldier in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad, bringing the number of Americans to die in three years in Iraq to 2,511.

Some of Bush's fellow Republicans fear low poll ratings over the war could hurt them in legislative elections. But senators rallied to accuse Democrats of "cutting and running" while their opponents said Republicans were uniting on failed policies.

The votes came as the U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, met Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for talks on future force levels. The Pentagon is considering a reduction of a few thousand troops from the present 127,000 in the coming months.

Iraqi police and other officials said a roadside bomb wounded the governor of the province where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike two weeks ago, although some Iraqi and U.S. officials called it a car accident.

Police sources said the car in which Diyala province governor Raad al-Mowla's driver and a bodyguard were killed was struck by shrapnel in the explosion. They dismissed a statement by the U.S. military that a tire blow-out caused the crash. Mowla was stable in a U.S. military hospital, the military said.

The U.S. military said Saddam had gone on hunger strike following Wednesday's killing of a third member of his defense team, missing his midday meal on Thursday. A U.S. military spokesman said he joined a group of former aides who have missed three meals since Wednesday.

"Despite their refusal to eat their meals, they are in good health and receiving appropriate medical care," he said.

Saddam's chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said on Wednesday night Saddam had started a hunger strike. The former Iraqi leader has refused food in the past, according to his lawyers.

MASS KIDNAPPING

Confusion surrounded the abduction of dozens of factory workers by gunmen north of Baghdad as they traveled home on Wednesday, with government officials offering flatly contradictory accounts which changed throughout the day.

Iraq's Interior Ministry said 80 or more workers were abducted by gunmen near Taji, a violent town north of Baghdad. About 40, all Shi'ites or women, were later freed. The fate of the remaining Sunni workers was not immediately known.

But Iraq's industry minister, whose ministry oversees the factory, said 64 were taken and 30 released. Iraqi soldiers said they had found several bodies in the area that might have been related to the abduction. There were unconfirmed reports from one Iraqi security office that troops had freed some hostages.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has pledged to heal tensions that have pushed the country toward civil war between majority Shi'ites and Saddam's once dominant Sunnis.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said a committee had approved Maliki's "national reconciliation" project, which would be presented to parliament on Sunday. It is likely to spell out how some Sunni insurgents can be brought into negotiations.

As part of a reconciliation drive, Maliki has announced the release of 2,500 mostly Sunni prisoners from U.S. jails in June. The U.S. military said it would free 500 on Friday.

Iraq's trade minister threatened to reconsider trade deals with wheat supplier Australia a day after Australian troops killed one of his bodyguards in a mishap in the capital.

The Australian government is trying to negotiate new wheat deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Iraq, whose state rations body is one of the world's biggest wheat buyers.

(Additional reporting by Mussab Al-Khairalla, Alastair Macdonald, Michael Georgy, Ibon Villelabeitia and Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad, Paul Tait and Michael Byrnes in Sydney and Vicki Allen and Will Dunham in Washington)



Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


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Big Three rebuffed third time by Bush

Thursday, June 22, 200
Big Three rebuffed third time by Bush
Mich. officials believe Republicans don't care about automakers after meeting delayed again.
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau





WASHINGTON -- President Bush's planned meeting with the Big Three has been postponed a third time -- this time until July -- which may add to the perception Detroit's automakers are struggling to get their message heard by the White House.

The automakers have been trying to meet with Bush to discuss soaring health-care costs, energy and trade issues. The Big Three have been waiting to follow the summit with an announcement about their commitment to producing more flexible fuel vehicles.

An initial meeting with Bush was set on May 18. The meeting was rescheduled for June 2 then postponed. The White House told automakers it was committed to a gathering by the end of June.

That deadline will come and go, and no firm date has been set in July.

"This is the most important industry in Michigan and, for that matter, the country, and the CEOs can't get a meeting with the president of the United States. That should speak volumes to voters in Michigan as to how the Republicans feel," said Gov. Jennifer Granholm's campaign spokesman Chris DeWitt.

White House spokesman Alex Conant said the administration has never confirmed any date for the meeting.

The automakers Wednesday declined to comment on the postponement.

Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos "has talked to all the automakers and offered to make a call to get the meeting set up," said his spokesman John Truscott. He said DeVos is sympathetic to the automakers positions on trade, currency and alternative fuels, but added: "No single state governor can solve the legacy cost issues of global companies."

Specifically, Detroit's CEOs want to discuss a proposal to reform pensions that could cost General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. billions of dollars, improving access to alternative fuels at the pump, and what the automakers call currency "manipulation" by the Chinese and Japanese central banks -- a claim the Asian automakers deny.

The domestic automakers also are smarting from a comment Bush made recently in the Wall Street Journal. The president said the Big Three need to build "relevant" vehicles.

That comment prompted GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, a lifelong Republican, to say he planned to cast a protest vote for possible Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is expected to attend a Detroit fundraiser for Granholm and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, in August.

Despite the meeting delays, the auto industry continues its Washington offensive.

GM's chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will testify before the U.S. Senate special committee on aging on July 13 about the company's staggering health care burden, which costs $1,500 per vehicle -- more than is spent on steel.

Wagoner plans to "highlight what GM is doing to improve health care and reduce costs for our employees and retirees," GM spokesman Greg Martin said.

GM is the largest single private purchaser of health care in the United States. The company spent $5.4 billion last year in providing health care for 1 in 271 Americans. It's also the largest purchaser of prescription drugs, spending $1.5 billion in 2005. GM expects its health care bill to reach $7.4 billion in 2009.

Ford Motor Co. Americas President Mark Fields spoke last week to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about health care, trade, currency and other issues.

You can reach David Shepardson at (202) 662-8735 or dshepardson@detnews.com.

GOP-run Senate kills minimum wage increase

Posted on Thu, Jun. 22, 2006
GOP-run Senate kills minimum wage increase
DAVID ESPO
Associated Press





WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled Senate smothered a proposed election-year increase in the minimum wage Wednesday, rejecting Democratic claims that it was past time to boost the $5.15 hourly pay floor that has been in effect for nearly a decade.

The 52-46 vote was eight short of the 60 needed for approval under budget rules and came one day after House Republican leaders made clear they do not intend to allow a vote on the issue, fearing it might pass.

The Senate vote marked the ninth time since 1997 that Democrats there have proposed - and Republicans have blocked - a stand-alone increase in the minimum wage. The debate fell along predictable lines.

"Americans believe that no one who works hard for a living should have to live in poverty. A job should lift you out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. He said a worker paid $5.15 an hour would earn $10,700 a year, "almost $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three."

Kennedy also said lawmakers' annual pay has risen by roughly $30,000 since the last increase in the minimum wage.

Republicans said a minimum wage increase would wind up hurting the low-wage workers that Democrats said they want to help.

"For every increase you make in the minimum wage, you will cost some of them their jobs," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.

He described the clash as a "classic debate between two very different philosophies. One philosophy that believes in the marketplace, the competitive system ... and entrepreneurship. And secondly is the argument that says the government knows better and that topdown mandates work."

The measure drew the support of 43 Democrats, eight Republicans and one independent. Four of those eight Republicans are seeking re-election in the fall.

Democrats had conceded in advance that this attempt to raise the minimum wage would fare no better than their previous attempts. At the same time, they have made clear in recent days they hope to gain support in the coming midterm elections by stressing the issue. Organized labor supports the legislation, and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said that contrary to some impressions, most minimum wage workers are adults, not teenagers, and many of them are women.

"When the Democrats control the Senate, one of the first pieces of legislation we'll see is an increase in the minimum wage," said Kennedy.

His proposal would have increased the minimum wage to $5.85 beginning 60 days after the legislation was enacted; to $6.55 one year later; and to $7.25 a year after that. He said inflation has eroded the value of the current $5.15 minimum wage by 20 percent.

With the help of a few rebellious Republicans, House Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee succeeded in attaching a minimum wage increase last week to legislation providing funding for federal social programs. Fearing that the House would pass the measure with the increase intact, the GOP leadership swiftly decided to sidetrack the entire bill.

"I am opposed to it, and I think a vast majority of our (rank and file) is opposed to it," House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday.

Pressed by reporters, he said, "There are limits to my willingness to just throw anything out on the floor."

On Wednesday, his spokesman, Kevin Madden, said Boehner has told fellow Republicans "the House will have to deal with this some way." He said no decisions had been made.

While Democrats depend on organized labor to win elections, Republicans are closely aligned with business interests that oppose any increase in the federal wage floor or would like changes in the current system.

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, offered an alternative that proposed a minimum wage increase of $1.10 over 18 months, in two steps.

The increase was coupled with a variety of provisions offering regulatory or tax relief to small businesses, including one to exempt enterprises with less than $1 million in annual receipts from the federal wage and hour law entirely. The current exemption level is $500,000, and a Republican document noted the amount had "lagged behind inflation."

Additionally, Republicans proposed a system of optional "flextime" for workers, a step that Enzi said would allow employees, at their discretion, to work more than 40 hours one week in exchange for more time off the next. Unions generally oppose such initiatives, and the Republican plan drew 45 votes, with 53 in opposition.



© 2006 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.fortwayne.com

Pentagon lists homosexuality as disorder

Pentagon lists homosexuality as disorder
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 19, 11:05 PM ET




WASHINGTON - A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.

The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

Critics said the reference underscores the Pentagon's failing policies on gays, and adds to a culture that has created uncertainty and insecurity around the treatment of homosexual service members, leading to anti-gay harassment.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin said the policy document is under review.

The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.

The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing grades for its treatment of gays.

Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the center, said, "The policy reflects the department's continued misunderstanding of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays and lesbians to access mental health services."

The document, called a Defense Department Instruction, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association.

"It is disappointing that certain Department of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' more than 30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification was a mistake," said Rep. Marty Meehan (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass.

Congress members noted that other Pentagon regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any lists of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and policies to ensure they reflect that same standard.

"Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 — a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric association, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier this month.

There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil





Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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PERFECT $TORM OF FEMA SCAMS

PERFECT $TORM OF FEMA SCAMS
BILLION-PLUS IN 'CANE RELIEF WENT FOR PORN, BOOZE & OTHER WASTE
By GEOFF EARLE




June 14, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - In a shocking rip-off of taxpayers, federal hurricane relief bought "Girls Gone Wild" videos, Caribbean vacations and French champagne, as thousands of brazen scam artists bilked the government out of $1.4 billion, a bombshell report reveals.

Although the aid was intended to shelter and clothe thousands of devastated families from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the audit to be presented to Congress today shows a widespread criminal splurge of debauchery and excess while the feds were asleep at the switch.

One evacuee scammed a luxurious $1,000 vacation at Punta Cana, a resort area in the Dominican Republic.

Another spent $300 on "Girls Gone Wild" videos at a Santa Monica, Calif., store.

Some opted for live entertainment: An evacuee spent $600 at a "gentlemen's club" in Houston, and another doled out $400 on "adult erotica products" at a Houston store called The Pleasure Zone.

"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on investigations. The panel will conduct the hearing today.

"Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time."




CBS News reported last night that 7,000 people could be charged.
As much as 16 percent of the total aid was hijacked by con artists, the report concludes.

A copy of today's testimony about the audit was obtained last night by The Post.

One "victim" rode out the storm's aftermath by spending $300 at a San Antonio Hooters - and $200 for a bottle of Dom Perignon.

The feds also covered one person's three-month stay for a Honolulu hotel for $115 per night. The alleged scammer also collected $2,358 in rental assistance - despite residing in North Carolina, not New Orleans.

Anticipating the city's rebirth, another evacuee spent $2,000 on five New Orleans Saints season tickets.

But one evacuee was more practical, spending $1,000 to pay a divorce lawyer.

Closer to home, one rip-off artist double-dipped in Queens - collecting $31,000 to cover an extended $149 per night at the Ramada Plaza Hotel while also taking $2,358 in rental assistance.

Most of the hucksters used phony names and addresses to collect Katrina housing aid. Many listed post-office boxes, and some even used New Orleans cemeteries - but the hapless feds failed to check up on them.

Most fraud occurred because the Federal Emergency Management Agency "did not validate the identity of the registrant," according to investigators.

Incredibly, the feds handed out millions in emergency housing aid to 1,000 people who used the names and Social Security numbers of prison inmates in a half-dozen states across the south.

FEMA paid more than $20,000 to one prisoner who used a post-office box as the address of his "damaged property." It sent 13 payments to one person who filed claims at the same address using 13 Social Security numbers.

A federal investigator sniffing out mismanagement listed a vacant lot as a damaged address - and still got a $2,358 check.

"This is absolutely disgraceful," said Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.). FEMA "loses a billion in Katrina at the same time it's cutting 40 percent of [anti-terror] funding to New York City," he added.

geoff.earle@nypost.com

The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them

Inequality in America
The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them
Jun 15th 2006 WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
The rich are the big gainers in America's new prosperity



AMERICANS do not go in for envy. The gap between rich and poor is bigger than in any other advanced country, but most people are unconcerned. Whereas Europeans fret about the way the economic pie is divided, Americans want to join the rich, not soak them. Eight out of ten, more than anywhere else, believe that though you may start poor, if you work hard, you can make pots of money. It is a central part of the American Dream.

The political consensus, therefore, has sought to pursue economic growth rather than the redistribution of income, in keeping with John Kennedy's adage that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The tide has been rising fast recently. Thanks to a jump in productivity growth after 1995, America's economy has outpaced other rich countries' for a decade. Its workers now produce over 30% more each hour they work than ten years ago. In the late 1990s everybody shared in this boom. Though incomes were rising fastest at the top, all workers' wages far outpaced inflation.

But after 2000 something changed. The pace of productivity growth has been rising again, but now it seems to be lifting fewer boats. After you adjust for inflation, the wages of the typical American worker—the one at the very middle of the income distribution—have risen less than 1% since 2000. In the previous five years, they rose over 6%. If you take into account the value of employee benefits, such as health care, the contrast is a little less stark. But, whatever the measure, it seems clear that only the most skilled workers have seen their pay packets swell much in the current economic expansion. The fruits of productivity gains have been skewed towards the highest earners, and towards companies, whose profits have reached record levels as a share of GDP.

Even in a country that tolerates inequality, political consequences follow when the rising tide raises too few boats. The impact of stagnant wages has been dulled by rising house prices, but still most Americans are unhappy about the economy. According to the latest Gallup survey, fewer than four out of ten think it is in “excellent” or “good” shape, compared with almost seven out of ten when George Bush took office.

The White House professes to be untroubled. Average after-tax income per person, Mr Bush often points out, has risen by more than 8% on his watch, once inflation is taken into account. He is right, but his claim is misleading, since the median worker—the one in the middle of the income range—has done less well than the average, whose gains are pulled up by the big increases of those at the top.

Privately, some policymakers admit that the recent trends have them worried, and not just because of the congressional elections in November. The statistics suggest that the economic boom may fade. Americans still head to the shops with gusto, but it is falling savings rates and rising debts (made possible by high house prices), not real income growth, that keep their wallets open. A bust of some kind could lead to widespread political disaffection. Eventually, the country's social fabric could stretch. “If things carry on like this for long enough,” muses one insider, “we are going to end up like Brazil”—a country notorious for the concentration of its income and wealth.

America is nowhere near Brazil yet (see chart 1). Despite a quarter century during which incomes have drifted ever farther apart, the distribution of wealth has remained remarkably stable. The richest Americans now earn as big a share of overall income as they did a century ago (see chart 2), but their share of overall wealth is much lower. Indeed, it has barely budged in the few past decades.

The elites in the early years of the 20th century were living off the income generated by their accumulated fortunes. Today's rich, by and large, are earning their money. In 1916 the richest 1% got only a fifth of their income from paid work, whereas the figure in 2004 was over 60%.

The not-so-idle rich

The rise of the working rich reinforces America's self-image as the land of opportunity. But, by some measures, that image is an illusion. Several new studies* show parental income to be a better predictor of whether someone will be rich or poor in America than in Canada or much of Europe. In America about half of the income disparities in one generation are reflected in the next. In Canada and the Nordic countries that proportion is about a fifth.

It is not clear whether this sclerosis is increasing: the evidence is mixed. Many studies suggest that mobility between generations has stayed roughly the same in recent decades, and some suggest it is decreasing. Even so, ordinary Americans seem to believe that theirs is still a land of opportunity. The proportion who think you can start poor and end up rich has risen 20 percentage points since 1980.

That helps explain why voters who grumble about the economy have nonetheless failed to respond to class politics. John Edwards, the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate in 2004, made little headway with his tale of “Two Americas”, one for the rich and one for the rest. Over 70% of Americans support the abolition of the estate tax (inheritance tax), even though only one household in 100 pays it.

Americans tend to blame their woes not on rich compatriots but on poor foreigners. More than six out of ten are sceptical of free trade. A new poll in Foreign Affairs suggests that almost nine out of ten worry about their jobs going offshore. Congressmen reflect their concerns. Though the economy grows, many have become vociferous protectionists.

Other rich countries are watching America's experience closely. For many Europeans, America's brand of capitalism is already far too unequal. Such sceptics will be sure to make much of any sign that the broad middle-class reaps scant benefit from the current productivity boom, setting back the course of European reform even further.

The conventional tale is that the changes of the past few years are simply more steps along paths that began to diverge for rich and poor in the Reagan era. During the 1950s and 1960s, the halcyon days for America's middle class, productivity boomed and its benefits were broadly shared. The gap between the lowest and highest earners narrowed. After the 1973 oil shocks, productivity growth suddenly slowed. A few years later, at the start of the 1980s, the gap between rich and poor began to widen.

The exact size of that gap depends on how you measure it. Look at wages, the main source of income for most people, and you understate the importance of health care and other benefits. Look at household income and you need to take into account that the typical household has fallen in size in recent decades, thanks to the growth in single-parent families. Look at statistics on spending and you find that the gaps between top and bottom have widened less than for income. But every measure shows that, over the past quarter century, those at the top have done better than those in the middle, who in turn have outpaced those at the bottom. The gains of productivity growth have become increasingly skewed.

If all Americans were set on a ladder with ten rungs, the gap between the wages of those on the ninth rung and those on the first has risen by a third since 1980. Put another way, the typical worker earns only 10% more in real terms than his counterpart 25 years ago, even though overall productivity has risen much faster. Economists have long debated why America's income disparities suddenly widened after 1980. The consensus is that the main cause was technology, which increased the demand for skilled workers relative to their supply, with freer trade reinforcing the effect. Some evidence suggests that institutional changes, particularly the weakening of unions, made the going harder for people at the bottom.

Whether these shifts were good or bad depends on your political persuasion. Those on the left lament the gaps, often forgetting that the greater income disparities have created bigger incentives to get an education, which has led to a better trained, more productive workforce. The share of American workers with a college degree, 20% in 1980, is over 30% today.

The excluded middle

In their haste to applaud or lament this tale, both sides of the debate tend to overlook some nuances. First, America's rising inequality has not, in fact, been continuous. The gap between the bottom and the middle—whether in terms of skills, age, job experience or income—did widen sharply in the 1980s. High-school dropouts earned 12% less in an average week in 1990 than in 1980; those with only a high-school education earned 6% less. But during the 1990s, particularly towards the end of the decade, that gap stabilised and, by some measures, even narrowed. Real wages rose faster for the bottom quarter of workers than for those in the middle.

After 2000 most people lost ground, but, by many measures, those in the middle of the skills and education ladder have been hit relatively harder than those at the bottom. People who had some college experience, but no degree, fared worse than high-school dropouts. Some statistics suggest that the annual income of Americans with a college degree has fallen relative to that of high-school graduates for the first time in decades. So, whereas the 1980s were hardest on the lowest skilled, the 1990s and this decade have squeezed people in the middle.

The one truly continuous trend over the past 25 years has been towards greater concentration of income at the very top. The scale of this shift is not visible from most popular measures of income or wages, as they do not break the distribution down finely enough. But several recent studies have dissected tax records to investigate what goes on at the very top.

The figures are startling. According to Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Thomas Piketty of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the share of aggregate income going to the highest-earning 1% of Americans has doubled from 8% in 1980 to over 16% in 2004. That going to the top tenth of 1% has tripled from 2% in 1980 to 7% today. And that going to the top one-hundredth of 1%—the 14,000 taxpayers at the very top of the income ladder—has quadrupled from 0.65% in 1980 to 2.87% in 2004.

Put these pieces together and you do not have a picture of ever-widening inequality but of what Lawrence Katz of Harvard University, David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Melissa Kearney of the Brookings Institution call a polarisation of the labour market. The bottom is no longer falling behind, the top is soaring ahead and the middle is under pressure.

Superstars and super-squeezed

Can changes in technology explain this revised picture? Up to a point. Computers and the internet have reduced the demand for routine jobs that demand only moderate skills, such as the work of bank clerks, while increasing the productivity of the highest-skilled. Studies in Britain and Germany as well as America show that the pace of job growth since the early 1990s has been slower in occupations that are easy to computerise.

For the most talented and skilled, technology has increased the potential market and thus their productivity. Top entertainers or sportsmen, for instance, now perform for a global audience. Some economists believe that technology also explains the soaring pay of chief executives. One argument is that information technology has made top managers more mobile, since it no longer takes years to master the intricacies of any one industry. As a result, the market for chief executives is bigger and their pay is bid up. Global firms plainly do compete globally for talent: Alcoa's boss is a Brazilian, Sony's chief executive is American (and Welsh).

But the scale of America's income concentration at the top, and the fact that no other country has seen such extreme shifts, has sent people searching for other causes. The typical American chief executive now earns 300 times the average wage, up tenfold from the 1970s. Continental Europe's bosses have seen nothing similar. This discrepancy has fostered the “fat cat” theory of inequality: greedy businessmen sanction huge salaries for each other at the expense of shareholders.

Whichever explanation you choose for the signs of growing inequality, none of the changes seems transitory. The middle rungs of America's labour market are likely to become ever more squeezed. And that squeeze feels worse thanks to another change that has hit the middle class most: greater fluctuations in people's incomes.

The overall economy has become more stable over the past quarter century. America has had only two recessions in the past 20 years, in 1990-91 and 2001, both of which were mild by historical standards. But life has become more turbulent for firms and people's income now fluctuates much more from one year to the next than it did a generation ago. Some evidence suggests that the trends in short-term income volatility mirror the underlying wage shifts and may now be hitting the middle class most.

What of the future? It is possible that the benign pattern of the late 1990s will return. The disappointing performance of the Bush era may simply reflect a job market that is weaker than it appears. Although unemployment is low, at 4.6%, other signals, such as the proportion of people working, seem inconsistent with a booming economy.

More likely, the structural changes in America's job market that began in the 1990s are now being reinforced by big changes in the global economy. The integration of China's low-skilled millions and the increased offshoring of services to India and other countries has expanded the global supply of workers. This has reduced the relative price of labour and raised the returns to capital. That reinforces the income concentration at the top, since most stocks and shares are held by richer people. More important, globalisation may further fracture the traditional link between skills and wages.

As Frank Levy of MIT points out, offshoring and technology work in tandem, since both dampen the demand for jobs that can be reduced to a set of rules or scripts, whether those jobs are for book-keepers or call-centre workers. Alan Blinder of Princeton, by contrast, says that the demand for skills depends on whether they must be used in person: X-rays taken in Boston may be read by Indians in Bangalore, but offices cannot be cleaned at long distance. So who will be squeezed and who will not is hard to predict.

The number of American service jobs that have shifted offshore is small, some 1m at the most. And most of those demand few skills, such as operating telephones. Mr Levy points out that only 15 radiologists in India are now reading American X-rays. But nine out of ten Americans worry about offshoring. That fear may be enough to hold down the wages of college graduates in service industries.

All in all, America's income distribution is likely to continue the trends of the recent past. While those at the top will go on drawing huge salaries, those in the broad middle of the middle class will see their incomes churned. The political consequences will depend on the pace of change and the economy's general health. With luck, the offshoring of services will happen gradually, allowing time for workers to adapt their skills while strong growth will keep employment high. But if the economy slows, Americans' scepticism of globalisation is sure to rise. And even their famous tolerance of inequality may reach a limit.

“The Polarisation of the U.S. Labour Market”, by David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz and Melissa S. Kearney. NBER Working Paper No 11986. January 2006

“Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Re-assessing the Revisionists”, by David Autor, Lawrence F. Katz and Melissa Kearney. NBER 11627. September 2005

“The Evolution of Top Incomes: A Historical and International Perspective”, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. NBER Working Paper 11955. January 2006

“Top Wealth Shares in the United States, 1916-2000: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns”, by Wojciech Kopczuk and Emmanuel Saez. National Tax Journal. June 2004

“Trends in the Transitory Variance of Earnings in the United States”, by Robert A. Moffitt and Peter Gottschalk. Economic Journal. March 2002

“Understanding Mobility in America”, by Tom Hertz, American University. Centre for American Progress. April 2006

“American Exceptionalism in a New Light: A Comparison of Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom and the United States”, by Markus Jantti, Knut Roed, Robin Naylor, Anders Bjorklund, Bernt Bratsberg, Oddbjorn Raaum and Tor Eriksson. IZA Discussion Paper No 1938. January 2006

“Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons from a Cross Country Comparison of Generational Earnings Mobility”, by Miles Corak. IZA Discussion Paper No 1993. March 2006

“Where Did the Productivity Growth Go? Inflation Dynamics and the Distribution of Income”, by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon. NBER Working Paper 11842. December 2005

“How Computerised Work and Globalisation Shape Human Skill Demands”, by Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane. May 2006






Copyright © 2006 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Senate passes ninth emergency spending bill since 9/11

Senate passes ninth emergency spending bill since 9/11
Shailagh Murray, Washington Post

Friday, June 16, 2006



(06-16) 04:00 PDT Washington -- An emergency spending bill to pay for war and storm-recovery costs is headed to President Bush after easily passing the Senate on Thursday.

The 98-1 vote was a rare moment of consensus on a day of anguished debate in both chambers over the Iraq war.

Bush praised Congress for providing funds to "fight terrorism, defend our homeland, enforce our borders, and fulfill our moral obligation to help our fellow Americans in need."

The $94.5 billion emergency bill includes nearly $66 billion for continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and nearly $20 billion in disaster assistance for the Gulf Coast. Lawmakers added the $2.3 billion that Bush had sought to combat avian flu and nearly $2 billion to beef up security along the U.S.-Mexico border, including $708 million to deploy National Guard troops.

Faced with a White House veto threat, House and Senate negotiators stripped out $14 billion in unrelated additional funding that the Senate had added to its version of the legislation. But the final bill did include a few unrelated items.

"We've made considerable progress toward limiting unnecessary and wasteful spending," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said in a statement after the vote. "But more can be done."

Though Congress has not resisted Iraq-related costs, which now total nearly $320 billion, lawmakers are increasingly irritated by the White House's reliance on the emergency-spending process. The bill would bring the tally for the campaign in Afghanistan to $89 billion.

The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday night to require that future war funding be factored into the annual federal budgets. The bill approved Thursday was the ninth emergency measure since Sept. 11, 2001 -- all off the books, "as if it were free money," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Emergency bills invite abuse, McCain said, because they are not scrutinized by authorizing committees and become magnets for perks. "We are blowing the budget process. We are carving gigantic holes in the system," McCain said.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., voted against the bill. He is opposed to a provision endorsing Bush's $873 billion "cap" on the annual appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. Specter is pushing for $7 billion in additional money for education and health programs. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.V., did not vote.

Final action on the bill was welcomed by Gulf Coast lawmakers, especially relatively junior Louisiana delegation members who felt their Katrina-devastated state was shortchanged in a similar measure in December.

The bill contains $3.7 billion for Louisiana flood-control projects, and Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and GOP colleague David Vitter are confident their state will receive $4.2 billion of $5.2 billion contained in the bill for direct grants to states. Louisiana plans to use its share to repair and rebuild housing stocks.

"Many people didn't have insurance because they weren't in a floodplain," Landrieu said. "And then the levees broke, and people, middle-income families, wealthy families and poor families lost the largest asset they had."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Police don't have to knock, justices say

Police don't have to knock, justices say
Alito's vote breaks 4-4 tie in police search case
By Bill MearsCNN
Thursday, June 15, 2006; Posted: 1:39 p.m. EDT (17:39 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A split Supreme Court ruled Thursday that drug evidence seized in a home search can be used against a suspect even though police failed to knock on the door and wait a "reasonable" amount of time before entering.

The 5-4 decision continues a string of rulings since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that in general give law enforcement greater discretion to carry out search-and-seizure warrants.

President Bush's nominees to the high court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, notably sided with the government.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said disallowing evidence from every "knock-and-announce violation" by officers would lead to the "grave adverse consequence" of a flood of appeals by accused criminals seeking dismissal of their cases. (Opinion -- pdf)

He was joined by Roberts and his fellow conservatives Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Alito.

Scalia added that police might put their lives in danger if they were uncertain when and if entry was legally permissible. "If the consequences of running afoul of the law were so massive, officers would be inclined to wait longer than the law requires -- producing inevitable violence against officers in some cases, and the destruction of evidence in many others."

The justices sparred in an appeal they are hearing for a second time, and reflected the deep divisions that remain on a court divided along ideological lines. There was little unanimity over how to ensure law enforcement officers do not routinely violate the constitutional protection against "unreasonable searches-and-seizures."

The appeal involves Booker Hudson, a Detroit, Michigan, man whose case has wound its way through various courts for nearly seven years.

Seven city police officers executed a search warrant in August 1998 on Hudson's home, finding crack cocaine on him and around the residence, as well as a gun.

Prosecutors said officers shouted "Police, search warrant," but readily admit that they did not knock on the door and that they waited only three to five seconds before entering and finding Hudson sitting on his couch. He was eventually convicted of drug possession.

"People have the right to answer the door in a dignified manner," Hudson's lawyer David Moran had told the high court. The justices have ruled in the past that police should announce their presence, then normally wait 15 to 20 seconds before bursting into a home.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a lengthy dissent, saying, "Our Fourth Amendment traditions place a high value upon protecting privacy in the home." A centerpiece of those protections, he said, includes the "exclusionary rule," under which evidence seized in illegal searches should be suppressed at trial.

"It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," concluded Breyer, who said he fears police will now feel free to routinely violate the knocking and waiting requirements, knowing they might not be punished for it.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg supported Breyer's position.
The majority-conservative court has been generally supportive of police discretion since the 9/11 attacks, including disputes over home and car searches, suspect interrogations, and sobriety and border checkpoints. Several of the more liberal justices have disagreed sharply in many of those cases.

The high court has already ruled on two other search-and-seizure cases this term. In March, it said police were wrong to search a Georgia man's home over his objections, even though his estranged wife gave her consent. And last month, police in Utah investigating reports of a loud party were found to be justified entering a home under "emergency circumstances" to break up a fight, even though they did not have a search warrant to enter.

Alito turned out to be the deciding vote in the Hudson case. He was not yet on the bench when the case was first argued in January. His predecessor, Sandra Day O'Connor, heard the case and appeared to support the defendant.

But she retired before a decision was issued and, under court rules, her vote did not count. That left a 4-4 tie, prompting the court to rehear the arguments.

Ex-BMV staffer sentenced for bribery

June 14, 2006
Ex-BMV staffer sentenced for bribery
By Vic Ryckaert

vic.ryckaert@indystar.com

A former Bureau of Motor Vehicles worker was sentenced this week to 30 days of home detention for taking bribes in exchange for giving foreign nationals passing grades on driving tests.

Rosalind "Rose" Eikman, 43, was also sentenced to 355 days probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine during a hearing Monday in Marion Superior Court.

Eikman admitted to committing official misconduct in connection with a 16-month investigation into ring that illegally provided licenses and ID cards to foreign nationals from such countries as Bulgaria, China, Mexico and Pakistan.

Eikman and co-worker Velvet McKinney were fired in January 2005 after they were accused of accepting cash, meals, computer equipment, a DVD player and trips to Cincinnati and the Argosy Casino in Lawrenceburg.

In March, McKinney, 44, was sentenced to three months in Marion County Jail and three more months of home detention.


Call Star reporter Vic Ryckaert at (317) 444-2761.


Copyright 2006 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved

Expert Says Attack 'Pleasurable'

Parents: Expert Says Attack 'Pleasurable'
Colorado Parents: Expert Claims Sex Attack Was 'Pleasurable' for Disabled Daughter



COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. Jun 13, 2006 (AP)— The parents of a severely disabled woman suing a Colorado Springs school district over a sexual assault at a high school said the district has refused to mediate a civil lawsuit as one of its experts called the attack "pleasurable" for the woman.

Kalie McArthur, now 20 and with an IQ of about 50, was assaulted in September 2004 at Rampart High School by a 15-year-old boy assigned as a peer trainer, said Jeff Weeks, an attorney for the girl and her parents.

The boy, who had been suspended 20 times in the previous year and had a 0.0 grade point average, wasn't screened or trained and spent an unknown amount of time with McArthur, her parents, Cindy Starr and James McArthur said.

Starr and McArthur, who have joint custody of McArthur, agreed to allow the woman's name be used.

Nanette Anderson, spokeswoman for the district, and Francine Guesnier, an attorney for the district, both declined comment, citing a pending court case.

A school coach found the boy and McArthur in a closet, partially unclothed on Sept. 14, 2004, Weeks said. The boy pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact with a helpless victim in 2005, Weeks said.

On June 2, the family filed a federal suit against the school district.

Starr said they weren't told she had been paired with another student.

"About 10 days before the assault, we noticed bruises on her thighs," said Starr. "After the assault, she said there was groping and grabbing going on before the assault involving other boys as well."

Starr and McArthur wanted to resolve the case through mediation, but the district refused, Weeks said.

"A professional hired by the district said the assault was pleasurable, not traumatic," said Starr. "He said it ignited her female desires."

Starr and McArthur said Kalie's behavior toward men has changed since the assault.

"She was loving and trusting. She went everywhere with us," said Starr. "Now, it takes 100 percent of one person to manage her aggression."

Starr said Kalie is still sweet and friendly, but will grab men and pinch them.

"She used to be passive and affectionate, now she's aggressive, especially toward males," said McArthur. "She could end up hurting someone, maybe a little boy."


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Homeland Security accepts fake ID

Homeland Security accepts fake ID
From Hussein Saddique CNN
Monday, June 12, 2006;
Posted: 9:40 p.m. EDT (01:40 GMT)



(CNN) -- A man using a fake identification card was able to enter the Homeland Security Department headquarters in Washington, he said, even though the United States government considers the type of Mexican-issued card he used invalid.

Retired New York City policeman Bruce DeCell, who had arranged to meet with DHS officials last week to lobby for document security, told CNN he purposely used a forged version of identification that Mexican consulates in the United States issue to their nationals living here illegally.

Undocumented Mexicans can use the cards at banks and other institutions that accept them. The cards are not valid for entry into federal government buildings.

DeCell is a board member of a group called "9/11 Families for a Secure America," which he formed with others after losing his son-in-law in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

His group advocates stricter controls against illegal immigrants and wants to ban use of the "matricula consular" cards.

"The card is an unsecure document that could facilitate terrorist money and travel," he said.

DeCell said a friend in California bought him the fake Mexican card for $20.

"I sent him a passport-size photo and the spelling of my name, and he had the card made for me on the street," he said.

Days before his meeting with DHS officials, DeCell was asked to furnish his name, Social Security number and birth date, so they could be compared by security personnel to a valid form of picture identification. The building security accepted his matricula card, even though it listed a false date of birth, he said.

He was allowed entry into the building after walking through a metal detector, according to a statement posted on his group's Web site.

"It's obscene in a post-9/11 world that they did not match my name against the fake [date of birth]," DeCell fumed. "They're spending a lot of money [on security] for nothing."

Jarrod Agen, a Homeland Security spokesman, told CNN, "In response to this incident, we are following up on the allegations, and we seek to ensure that an incident like this does not occur again.

"At no time was there a threat to the DHS building or its personnel," he said.

DeCell said he has used the card for years in airports and other sensitive locations, but was still astonished that he was able to use it to enter the headquarters of Homeland Security, the federal agency charged with determining secure IDs.

"It's very frustrating," he told CNN. "I'm an unpaid citizen who had a loss on 9/11, and they're not doing what they need to do to prevent another 9/11. It's very discouraging for me."

Your congressman just got a raise

Your congressman just got a raise
Tuesday, June 13, 2006;
Posted: 7:53 p.m. EDT (23:53 GMT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

Lawmakers easily squelched a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.

In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA. Last year, the Senate voted 92-6 to deny the raise but quietly surrendered the position in House-Senate talks.

As part of an ethics reform bill in 1989, Congress gave up their ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless the lawmakers voted otherwise.

The pay issue has been linked to the annual Transportation and Treasury Department spending bill because that measure stipulates that civil servants get raises of 2.7 percent, the same as military personnel will receive. Under a complicated formula, the increase translates to 2 percent for members of Congress.

Like last year, Matheson led a quixotic drive to block the raise. He was the only member to speak on the topic.

"I do not think that it is appropriate to let this bill go through without an up or down vote on whether or not Congress should have an increase in its own pay," Matheson said.

But by a 249-167 vote, the House rejected Matheson's procedural attempt to get a direct vote on the pay raise.

The pay raise would also apply to the vice president -- who is president of the Senate -- congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices.

This year, Vice President Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Chief Justice John Roberts receive $212,100. Associate justices receive $203,000. House and Senate party leaders get $183,500.

President Bush's salary of $400,000 is unaffected by the legislation.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.